By: Reuters

Burkina Faso launches its first gold refinery as the country seeks to process more of its mineral wealth at home

Ibrahim Traore, Burkinabe president

“Our ambition is no longer to be just a country that extracts its raw materials and sends them abroad. We want to refine all our metals locally. For everything related to the extractive industry, we want to have the entire value chain in the country. And we are starting with gold. As I mentioned earlier, there are many other metals in our subsoil that we want to extract, but we want to have control over the entire process, down to the last detail.”

According to authorities, the facility was built at a cost of more than 11 billion CFA francs ($18 million), with funding from the state and national private-sector partners.

The refinery is designed to process gold alloy into fine gold bars with a purity of 99.99%, Mines Minister Yacouba Zabre Gouba said.

In its first phase, the facility will have an annual refining capacity of 164 metric tons of gold, with a planned capacity of 515 metric tons in the longer term, according to figures provided by the government.